TUESDAY: THE CONTROVERSY

It's great to see all your early birds out here today. My name is René, another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. And this is going to date me like my gray hair doesn't. But I was thinking the other day I remember in junior high the Rock vs. Disco Wars. Does anybody else remember this besides me? On one side was Led Zeppelin, Styx, AC/DC, and groups like that. On the other side, Bee Gees, Sheik, Abba. At lunchtime, the Rock kids ate in one place and the Disco kids ate in another place. And it started fun but then you started having to choose sides, right? Because if you dared to say to your Led Zeppelin loving friend that you kind of liked some of the Bee Gees songs, they might never speak to you again.

It got very serious and it infamously culminated nationally when Chicago disc jockey Steve Dahl asked his listeners at his rock and roll station to bring Disco records. Do you remember this? To a White Sox baseball game and matches. What could go wrong? And then burn them at the game. Fifty thousand listeners showed up. They flooded the field setting records on fire. Riot police were called in. And I'll remind you this all got started with opposition to the Bee Gees. Like the mildest group of singers ever, right? How could they start a riot?

Well, I got a question for you. Does it seem to you like debate and conversation in our society has degenerated down to junior high level? Only substitute for rock and disco Democrat and Republican? We need to talk about polarization. If you feel like things are tense, you are not alone. Recent poll of 17 countries in Europe, Asia, North America. Watch this. Americans reported more political division than any other country. And there's some intense countries on that list. But we at least feel like we are more politically divided than any other country on the planet. Right?

And it has all changed so quickly. Watch this. The statement: Very strong conflicts exist between Democrats and Republicans. Would you say that's true? Well, watch this. In 2012, less than half of Americans surveyed agreed with that statement. Can you believe that that long ago we were living in a country where most Americans would say, that's not true. I don't think that's true. 2020, it was over 70 percent. 2022, it's now at 90 percent. And get this. This one shocked me. I heard this a week ago on the radio. Twenty percent of Americans now, and this is about the same on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, agree with this statement: The country would be better if opposition politicians were dead. Not just like it'd be better if they changed their minds. It'd be better if maybe they came to know Jesus. No, I'd rather they were dead. Wow.

Now, do you think anybody can you imagine anybody in the world that might have something to gain from our polarization? A researcher with the respected journal Foreign Affairs says this: Foreign trolls and online proxies exploit disagreements in the U.S. over social issues like abortion, gun control, ethnic groups, police behavior. The goal is not to promote one political side over another. It's to keep the United States as divided as possible. Anything to distract from their own totalitarian regimes.

Two observations. First, the really sad thing for me as a pastor is to see so many Jesus followers get drawn into this and get played. But secondly, this is human nature. The same exact dynamic was playing out in Jesus' day. The first century Jewish writer Josephus describes the Jerusalem that he and Jesus lived in as "full of factions always engaged in bitter strife." It erupted at times in bloody civil war and every faction always wanted to know, "Whose side are you on?"

Do you support Caesar or do you support the revolution? Do you support paying the tax or not paying the tax? Whose side are you on? Do you support this rabbi or do you support that rabbi? And it was into that polarized Jerusalem that Jesus rides. And somehow he is able to stay on mission and on message even though people perpetually try to goad him into taking sides. And his response to those people shows us how to stay on track in an increasingly divided and distracting world.

Grab your message notes. Seven Days is our series on the final week of the life of Jesus. We're taking it a day at a time. Sunday we saw that a couple of weeks ago Jesus rides into town in an echo you'll remember of a man named Judas Maccabeus. Judas Maccabeus was the last great successful revolutionary war hero of Israel 200 years before Jesus Christ exactly. And on the bicentennial, Jesus rides in kind of replaying his entry into Jerusalem.

Then on Monday we saw this last week Jesus harshly condemns the temple leadership with a public demonstration. He says, "You are nothing but a den of thieves." And he leaves and Tuesday he walks right back into that den. And they are on the attack. The Gospels actually spend more time on Tuesday than any other day that week. So much happened on Tuesday. And so in each of the daily video devos this week I cover some of the verses I'm going to skip today. But there is one confrontation after another because his enemies have a very clever strategy.

They are going to throw at Jesus every wedge issue, culture war issue, political division of his day to try to force him to take a stand, choose a side, pin him down, rock or disco Jesus, so they can fracture his followers. And Jesus slips through every trap, staying on message. So how do we do that? Well, if you have your Bibles, crack them open to Mark 12:13. We're going to start on verse 13. I'm going to cover the two most famous confrontations on that day. This is very dramatic stuff here. Are you ready for this? There's a lot we can learn from this.

Verse 13, "Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words." Now let me just pause there for a second. Who's they? They are not the Pharisees and the Herodians. So who's they? They are the temple leadership, the temple elite, what we might call the board of directors. And in those days, this is very important, the high priest, we think of that as a religious office, but long before, during the Maccabean revolt, one of the most controversial things the Maccabeans did, Judas Maccabeus and his descendants, is they actually changed the high priesthood from being primarily a religious office staffed by descendants of Levi into a political office staffed by political appointees.

Can you see what a huge difference that makes? And so what happened, of course, because there weren't elections or anything, just the temple elite could appoint the next high priest now. They didn't have to find some Levitical priests. And so what happened was an increasingly smaller group started supplying the temple leadership. Like, for example, in Jesus' day, there'd been a man named Annas, who was chief priest, and then he had four sons who became chief priests after him, and his son-in-law, when he ran out of sons, named Caiaphas became chief priest. So that's one, two, three, four, five, six members of his family who are high priests, chief priests, one after another, and they're all still on the board of directors, because you'll see later on Annas and Caiaphas are part of the small cabal that wants to put Jesus to death.

So these are the board of directors. You know, these are less like saints and more like the Sopranos, all right? This is what somebody called the temple mafia, and they're up there in their board room somewhere, and they're hatching a plan. Like, they don't even have to confront Jesus. What they need to do is they need to find true believers of these different factions to go after Jesus and enact this plan to divide his followers. So they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians. Who are the Pharisees and Herodians? The Pharisees were religious resistors to the Roman occupation. They were like, "We're not going to pay the temple tax! That's blasphemous! It's got the image of Caesar on it!"

And this is, the temple tax is like paying for the privilege of being subjugated by the Romans. And so we're not going to pay that. And then the Herodians were what you could call the secularized supporters of the Romans. These two groups, the Herodians were not really religious, and they were basically Romans and Greeks in dress style, and they sent their kids to the best schools in Rome. In fact, their children went to the same schools as the Caesar's kids. And so these two groups, they were sold out on their point of view, but they were unlikely to agree on anything except they both opposed Jesus.

And so they came to him trying to trick him, and they said, "Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You can just feel the schmooze. You can feel the flattery here. You are enslaved by others because you pay no attention to who they are, but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth." So, is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we? Right out of the gate, the single most polarizing controversy in their world, the political hot button, the perfect ambush.

This conversation has long fascinated artists. You know, I love art history. This one's by Alexander Bida, who I think does such a great job of showing the two different parties. They hate each other. You've got these two groups, the secular group and the religious group, but they hate Jesus more. And this one is by Jan Loik and the religious anti-Romans over here, and then the rich pro-Romans over here. And they're surrounding Jesus. What party are you a member of? Whose side are you on? And it's all centered on this question of the tax. This was an annual tax that went to Rome of one denarius. It wasn't a lot, but it was symbolic.

And when that tax was first put into place, there was a huge rebellion. In fact, exactly 25 years before this moment, there was an armed revolt led by a man named Judas, the Galilean probably named after Judas, the Maccabean. As you can tell, Judas was a very patriotic name in those days, kind of like maybe Lincoln today. And he went up to the Temple Mount and led a demonstration and said, "We shall not pay this tax. We are not subjects of Caesar. I'm going to bring in the kingdom of God." And he was caught, tried, executed. Twenty-five years later, what they're saying is, "So, are you a revolutionary, like Judas, the Galilean, or Judas, the Maccabean?" Very clever trap, because if Jesus says, "No, of course, don't pay that tax," he's calling for an armed revolt and he will be crushed by the Roman authorities instantly.

On the other hand, if he says, "Yes, do pay the tax," he'll lose the people who loathe the Romans. Very clever. The board of directors has come up with a great trap. Jesus is more clever. But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. "Why are you trying to trap me?" He asked. "Bring me a denarius and let me look at it." And so they bring him a denarius. Let me show you a picture of a denarius from his day. On these coins was a picture of Caesar Tiberius, and the inscription on this side reads, "Tiberius, son of the God, Augustus." And on the other side, the words, "Pontifex Maximus," which means high priest. And Caesar, of course, applied this to himself.

So the irony, Jesus is holding up this coin. Jesus is holding up a coin that says, "Son of God, high priest." Well, they brought the coin and he asked them, "Whose image is this?" Remember that image. "And whose inscription?" "Well, Caesar's," they replied. "Does he say so? Pay taxes." Or, "Does he say how dare this idolatrous image even be in my hand? How can you even think of paying taxes to pagans?" He doesn't say either thing. What does he say? And then Jesus said to them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." And they were amazed at him.

Now listen, that one sentence was like a mic drop moment for Jesus, right? It was like one sentence, boom. And so what I'm going to do for a couple of paragraphs is explain why they were amazed at him, but Jesus didn't explain it, all right? Jesus wanted that answer to kind of like go, "Rum," and echo in their brains. But just because we're 2,000 years removed from the culture, here's why they were so amazed. Jesus is basically saying, "Don't substitute politics for God." And he's saying this to people who thought politics was the way to establish the kingdom of God.

So much is going on here. To paraphrase Tim Keller in his book, "King's Cross," Jesus is refusing three things they're trying to trap him into. First, he refuses political binaries. And binary means two choices, this or that, Jesus. Yes or no, rock or disco. Notice how they ask the question, "Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we pay?" Two options, Jesus. Yes or no, take a side, and Jesus will not do it. And Christians, this is so wise, because there's all sorts of groups that will try to get you to take a stand in their binary paradigm, right? Take a stand on this candidate, this group, this author, whatever, and this is happening on the left and the right in major ways right now.

Are you this or that? And if you don't answer in their words exactly what they're looking to hear, then they'll have nothing more to do with you. That's exactly what's happening here. But of course, most of the time, there are nuances to issues, and that kind of oversimplification is what Jesus refuses. Now, Jesus is binary when he talks about things like our relationship to him, very binary. "Will you follow me or not?" But when he's asked about this political issue, he does not give a simplistic yes or no answer. It's a balanced answer. It's a nuanced answer. Thereafter, yes or no, but he won't do it. Because both sides are left kind of going, "Hmm, I've got to think that through."

So here's one very practical application. Don't do for Jesus what Jesus refused to do for himself. And let me give you an example. I get groups here that come to me at the church who want to distribute "Christian voter guides" that allege to show how Jesus Christ would vote on every single issue on the ballot. I did not know that Jesus had a position on the rail trail debate, but apparently he does. And I think that is so presumptuous. Jesus wouldn't do it, so why are you trying to do it for him?

But Jesus also resists political withdrawal. You see, there were two groups out there not paying taxes. One was a group called the Essenes, and the Essenes dropped out. They went off the grid. Have you ever heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls? They were found in the desert south of Jerusalem in these very caves. Well, this is where the Essenes went to live because they said, "We're not paying our taxes. In fact, we're going to drop out of the system." And this impulse has happened again and again in human history.

I was reading this last week. In 1978, Soviet geologists that were flying a little plane over Siberia to map it out flew over this very uninhabited area, a very similar landscape to Alaska. And they took these photos of this terraced garden, and so they knew there were humans there. And then they sent a first contact team in, and this is the log cabin they found. And they discovered a group that had cut themselves off from all outside contact for over two centuries. They were completely unaware that World War II had ever happened. They knew nothing of any 20th century technology. Who were they? Turns out they were members of a Russian Orthodox Christian sect called the Old Believers.

And way back in the days of Peter the Great, like around 1700, the Old Believers had been persecuted. And the last straw for them was their beards were taxed. Literally a beard tax because Peter the Great wanted to modernize Russia, and part of that meant, "Get rid of all these beards that make us look old fashioned. The French don't wear beards." And if they didn't pay the beard tax, they were forcibly shaved. So this whole group back then decides, "We're going to go off the grid so we don't have to pay the beard tax, and we can grow our beards." And since the days of the Czar, they had been all forgotten by the rest of the world.

And eventually, as you see here, they came to look like young men in Santa Cruz, California. It's amazing. In fact, they refused to leave the area. To this day, there is still one left out there, Agafia. She's 78 now. But this all started with withdrawal to protest a tax, and this was the impulse of the Essenes. But Jesus says, "No, render unto Caesar." He's not saying, "If you pay taxes, you're automatically agreeing with everything Caesar does. You're not worshipping Caesar." Excuse me. You know, the Bible says, "Government has a God-ordained role." May I point out that's how you got here today? Because we have a government. You drove here today on roads paved by the government. And this year, that government will be repaving a lot of those roads. But we should be thankful for government.

Now, I hear you. But, René, sometimes the government acts in very, very non-Christian ways. I know. But think of what's happening here. Jesus is implying that payment of tax to an earthly government, even in his specific case here this week, to an idolatrous, blasphemous, pagan government that is about to kill him, is still the right thing to do. Now, I want to hasten to add, don't get carried away. Don't pay any more tax than you have to. But Jesus affirms the role of government. And I'd apply the same principle to like voting, sitting on committees, running for office. We should be engaged with our society, with our community, politically.

Don't just withdraw in despair or cynicism, but have a realistic perspective about how much political involvement can actually accomplish. And that's the third thing Jesus is also refusing: political primacy. The idea that the way you solve the problems of humanity is through politics. See, the other group that also wouldn't pay their taxes were the zealots. And the zealots said, "Let's revolt!" They were the armed resistance. They said, "We need to take up arms and overthrow Rome, because our only hope is politics. Our only hope is changing political leadership." And Jesus here is clearly not going that direction either.

Watch this. By using the word "image," he's referring to the image of Caesar on that coin. Because the coin had the image of Caesar. But then when he says, "Only give to Caesar what has his image on it," he's saying, "Remember what else the Bible says? Has an image? What is made in God's image? You." So, you know, toss Caesar his piece of metal, but you give all the rest to God, all of you, your whole life. What he's really saying is, "Caesar is not your main problem." Do you get that? His society was obsessed with it. We only got a new ruler. Then things would finally be okay. Then things would change.

It's kind of like when an addict, many of us here at TLC are recovering addicts and alcoholics. We have a thriving recovery ministry. But you know how it is. What I really need is a new boss. What I need is a car. What I need is some money. What I need is a spouse or a new spouse. What I need is a new place to live. What I need is fill in the blank. Then I will stop using. Then I will stop getting so angry all the time. Then I will stop overeating or whatever it is, because my outside circumstances are driving me to that. If those things change, then I would finally change. No, of course, the problem is not your money. The problem is not your car. The problem is not your boss. It's really not. The problem is you.

When you fully surrender to God, give to God what is God's, that's when the healing begins. That's called repentance. Well, the Temple Board of Directors up there keeps sending these verbal assassins, and Jesus keeps deflecting with these brilliant answers, and this gets someone's attention. Very quickly, second way to stay on track in a polarized world, don't substitute legalism for love. Legalism is when a religion becomes all about the rules, and religious groups get more fundamentalist in times of division and crisis. That was happening in Jesus' day.

The rabbis were splintering into smaller and smaller groups, arguing over all this religious stuff. And so, Mark 12:28, "One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating, noticing Jesus had given them a good answer. He asked him, 'Okay, of all the commandments, which one is the most important?'" And you know how the two biggest things that you're supposedly not supposed to talk about at parties are politics and religion, because those are the two things that people get the most upset about? Well, everybody's just posed Jesus as a political question. Here comes the religious question, right?

Because this caused so much splintered groups, because you might be thinking the Ten Commandments, right? In those days, they had 613 commandments that they'd sussed out of the Bible, but then they had thousands more, what they called "fence laws," to keep you from breaking any of those commandments, and so there was constant debates, which one is the most important, endless. And scholars who've studied writings by the rabbis back in the first century, they said there were three areas that they focused on in answer to that question. They focused on circumcision and how to do it right and who has to be circumcised when. They focused on kosher dietary laws, so those two things. And then they also focused on, oh, I just wrote this down because I just found this thought. Oh, Sabbath-keeping, of course.

You know, how do you keep the Sabbath the right way, all sorts of minute details? So Sabbath-keeping, circumcision, kosher dietary laws, one of those things is the most... Jesus goes a completely different direction. The most important one, here it comes, answered Jesus, is this: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." This is the Shema, this is the prayer that all devout Jews would pray, and still pray, twice a day at least. And then Jesus says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." That's the most important command of all.

So how do you do that? If that's a command, how do you do that? The Bible says, "We love Him because He first loved us." And so what you do is you just consider, you think about the love of God to you, reaching out in creation, everything that's ever given to you, every single day as a gift of God's love. The air you breathe, and the sunshine and the rain, and the shelter that you enjoy, and the friends and the food, it all comes from the hand of a loving God, and especially when you think of His love that redeems us.

And then you love God back with all your being, and that love strengthens you and gives you a sense of perspective, and wonder, and gratitude, and calm. You love God, and then you are strengthened to do the second command. And this was not in the Shema, the traditional Jewish prayer. This wasn't in the Hebrew Scripture, but Jesus says, "Let me just kind of grab that one and put it in the Shema, and make it this important." The second most important command is this, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Say these three words out loud with me. "Love your neighbor." Jesus elevates this, and He says, "There is no commandment greater than these two. Love God, love people." That's it.

And do you see how those two passages we've been looking at today fit together? The revolution's not even about Caesar, guys. Let's just stop obsessing on Caesar. The revolution is about you giving everything you've got to God. How do you do that? You love God, you love people. Because when you do that, I mean, like when you do that, it'll make a difference. It'll make a difference on the street where you live. It'll become more loving in your neighborhood. And the people you know will have a more positive impression of Jesus, and that all kinds of good things will spread. That's the revolution.

It's a revolutionary kind of revolution, and you might think that's naive, but you know what? Think about it. That gleaming temple in Jerusalem is long gone. Even the Roman empires, all ruins, there's only one thing that started during the days of the Roman empire that is still rolling today, and it's what Jesus started with no army, no status, no money, no political party, and it's all around the world today. This revolution really works. Now, it's a lot slower. You know, a political revolution might overthrow somebody and put in a new ruler in a day or a year. Jesus said, "No, this is more like seeds. This one's more like yeast. It starts slow and it's quiet, but pretty soon it's everywhere, and they can't stop it."

The Roman forts were the best forts in the world. The Roman soldiers were the best soldiers in the world. Jesus is like, "They can't stop seeds blowing in the wind. They can't stop it." This is his strategy for the revolution, and this is why, for example, we're working with our Syrian Arab Christian brothers and sisters right now to bring assistance to the earthquake victims over there. This is why when a couple of weeks ago, you might have heard about this, a fire destroyed the first historic black Christian church in Oakland, and we're sending assistance to them.

This week, we provided food for the emergency storm shelter over at Cabrillo because when we love our neighbors after we're first filled with the love of God, it changes things. It changes people. I keep coming back to what Willie Elliot McCray, the former executive director of the Food Bank, told me when he retired recently. "René, what I see at TLC is people who know they are loved by God, and then that love overflows." That's it, man. That's the real revolution. Every other revolution is similar in that it uses similar methods. But this, this is different.

And then watch this. Then this expert draws out a meaning that Jesus didn't say out loud, but implied. Remember they're up at the temple. The temple mafia is trying to protect their system. And he says, "Well said, teacher." Wow. You're right in saying that God is one and there's no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Well, that's more important than all of this. That's more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Do you get what he's, he's connecting the dots here. He's like, "That's true. If we do that, we're not going to need all this." And that means we're kind of all out of a job. And the more I think about it, the more I'm kind of okay with that. This guy's been talking with Jesus for 60 seconds and he's already switching sides. And it says, "When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.'" And from then on it says, "No one dared to ask him any more questions." Why? Because their own verbal assassins are starting to go, "Oh, I think this guy's onto something. Why are we against this guy again? I kind of like this guy."

And so the temple elite is going, "Stop listening to him. Stop talking to him." Time for plan B. And plan B is hatched on Wednesday in a private room by one of Jesus's own disciples, one named for the Galilean, and the Maccabean, one raised surely on their tales of military exploits, one who was ready for a military revolution. And when the penny drops for this teacher of the law, I think the penny drops for that guy too. This is a revolution of love. I didn't sign up for that. That's ridiculous. And he goes up to the boardroom and he makes a deal, and you're going to hear about that next weekend.

But for now, the question for you and me is, do you want to join this revolution? Because that's the revolution that has changed the world. And if we stay on track, if we don't let them divide and distract us, if we don't let the Jesus revolution and the splendor and the radical nature of the Jesus revolution be diverted by attention to much lesser political division, then it's going to keep being a revolution that keeps changing the world. Are you up for it? Do you want to enlist or re-enlist? Well, then let's pray together. Bow your heads with me.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much that Jesus came not to just start another human political movement or revolution. Thank you that he came to start a real revolution based on repentance, starting with the soul. And so right now we want to enlist or re-enlist, we want to give you what is yours. Thank you for the forgiveness made possible by the blood of Jesus on the cross that eliminated the need for temples and sacrifices. Help us to love God and love people, and in that way may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, until one day you perfectly restore the kingdom and show that yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.